


"Tankie is a snack" but make it literal

by lizard_brains



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: Cannibalism, Dubiously Consensual Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss of Limbs, Mermaids, Neopronouns, Not very graphic violence, Other, Shipwreck, ancom isn't vegan in this one sorry, human!tankie, if all the fuckers that said cannibalism was hot dont read this im quitting writing istg, its a cannibal mermaid fic what did u want, mermaid!ancom, qui also has somewhat fucked up morals, semi ethical cannibalism, they cuddle afterwards does that make it better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizard_brains/pseuds/lizard_brains
Summary: The fandom for the historical musical Hamilton has two separate cannibal mermaid fanfics. In order to beat it, Jreg needs three. I am doing my part.
Relationships: Ancom/tankie
Comments: 25
Kudos: 42





	"Tankie is a snack" but make it literal

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes out to the "cannibalism is hot actually" crowd. enjoy your meal fuckers.
> 
> also i only skimmed it for mistakes and such so if find any pls comment. 
> 
> i might've also fucked up ancom's pronouns bc i can't decide whether i conjugate them as qui/quem/quis or qui/quem/quir

Tankie was paralyzed by the freezing water. He blankly stared into the night sky, trying to focus on his breathing. He could see the wreckage of his ship with the corner of his eye, although everything was eerily quiet. The sea was still roaring, the bubbling around the remains of the vessel still assaulted his ears with the horrid sound of sinking scraps, but there was no sound of any other survivors. No yelling, no splashing around in the liquid void of the ocean, no panicking sounds of grasping at the floating wood. Everything was quiet. Until it wasn’t.

A slow sound of the water spreading around a body approached him, like a huge fish gaining in on its pray. His brain was too anemic for him to care at this point, and he just continued to lay, staring into the sky, praying to gods he didn’t believe in. A weight was placed on the side of a wooden door he was floating on, tilting it slightly and letting Tankie’s jacket soak up more water. He, nevertheless, continued to lie and blankly stare. Only when two slim, slimy hands hover over and touched his chest did he jolt up and gazed directly into the eyes of the creature leaning on his impromptu raft.

It had a human face and a human upper body, although its skin was scaley and a swampy green colour, with something like fins on its lower arms and the sides of its face. Its huge emerald eyes penetrated Tankie’s soul and its toothy grin displayed an array of sharp teeth. There was a small gulp of water behind it and only then did he realize it was flapping its… tail? Its giant fish tail that it had, apparently.

After the initial wave of shock Tankie’s first instinct was to open his mouth and attempt a yelp, a scream, a bark, anything, literally anything he was able to push out of his throat. But before even a feeble sound could escape him the creature immediately placed its finger onto his yapper, forcing it closed.

“Shhh,” it said, and its voice sounded double, like it was constantly choking on water. “Qui/quem.”

Tankie’s perplexment caused him a stutter, being unable to properly process and react to the situation.

“What?” he finally managed to say, lips dragging uncomfortably against the slippery finger, still firmly pressed to his mouth.

“Qui/quem,” it repeated, unchanged in its expression or tone. “Those are my pronouns, silly. I thought that was an important piece of information for you to have before we get to know each other better.”

Qui smiled, creating a huge pit in Tankie’s stomach with a single movement of quis face muscles. Qui made a walking motion with quis free hand, approaching his leg. Qui poked his thigh and watched his face closely as Tankie didn’t react, not fully feeling his legs anymore.

“Are you hurt?” qui inquired with a tilt of quis head.

“N-no, I don’t think so,” he responded, thinking about all the bruises he probably had all over his body, although none of them serious enough to be considered real injuries. “Who are you? And how do you know—”

“Your language?” qui swam around Tankie, circling his place of refuge like a shark. “You tend to pick things up from all the shipwrecks happening around here.”

Qui seemed to deliberately ignore the first question, and quis answer to the second one did not make a single thing clearer. Qui was really interested in his legs for some reason, poking them again and examining closely.

“Are you sure your legs aren’t hurt?” qui had a weird tone to quis voice, as if qui wanted him to be hurt. “Like, they aren’t broken, there’s no bone poking out, no open injuries?”

“No. I’m sure.” Tankie prepped himself up onto his elbows, getting increasingly more uncomfortable with this creature snooping around his limbs without him seeing what was happening.

“You don’t feel them though, do you?” qui sent a series of squeezes up his leg, each one failing to be registered by his brain. The freezing waster acted as anesthesia of sorts, making him feel as if half of his body was already claimed by the merciless ocean.

“I don’t, no— wait, why?” his slow brain finally caught up to him when he saw the mermaid creature unhinge quis jaw in preparation to bite off his leg.

“NO! STOP!” he shouted in a panic and yanked his leg back as hard as he could, losing balance and falling backwards into the cold of the open sea, the darkness swallowing him whole.

He woke up again, this time not on a half broken piece of wood. His back was propped up on some rocks, and he was fully out of the water on what seemed to be an out of water reef. The mermaid was sitting next to him, too busily examining his limbs to notice Tankie was awake now. Out of the water quis venomously green tail was in its full glory, the fins at the end of it touching the water just enough to send ripples into the sea.

“You like it?” quis voice caught him off guard, and he immediately tore his gaze off the fish tail. Maybe it was rude of him. On the other hand, attempting to chomp off his legs was definitely rude of quem.

Qui flopped quis tail onto Tankie’s lap, which startled him, in turn making quem giggle. The slimy thing moved on his thighs and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it, and the mermaid seemed to be looking at him expectantly. He awkwardly raised his hand and petted the tail. The action only caused quem to burst into laughter and yank quis tail away, adding to his confusion.

“You’re so silly,” qui smiled, leaning closer to him. “Part of me wishes I could keep you.”

He had no idea what qui meant and he did not want to find out. Qui giggled and smiled creepily, looking at him with a weird spark in quis inhuman eyes, a hunger, both metaphorical and literal.

“You still don’t feel anything, do you?” qui asked, poking his thigh while maintaining strict eye contact.

“N-no,” he shook his head, stumbling over his words a bit. The memories from earlier flooded back to him along with a newly found fear of the sea creature sitting next to him. His mind was yelling, kicking and screaming at him to do something, to deck this monster, to cry out for help, to do anything his self-defense instincts told him to do in order to not get devoured by the scrawny fish person.

The other part of his mind was, however, completely numb. There was no one around to help him, he was out of his element, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do even if he managed to get quem to leave him alone.

“Does it hurt?” he asked with a shaky breath, which caught quim off guard. After a moment of silent surprise qui erupted in laughter, and then brought quis fin-like webbed fingers to his face with a gleeful smile.

“The thigh usually tastes better, but just for you I can settle on your shins, how about that?”

Tankie let out a bitter laugh, for the first time showing an emotion other than perplexed fear.

“How benevolent of you,” his sarcasm made quem slip into a sour pout, but that expression was quickly changed into an evil smirk.

“Don’t get cheeky with me, I’ll bite your face off,” quis voice was silky smooth, the melodic notes immediately wiping Tankie’s smug expression off his face. It was quis turn to laugh once again.

“Don’t worry, I’m just playing with you,” qui gave him a boop on the nose, leaving it wet and cold, and slipped into the water once more.

Qui wrapped quis fingers around his leg and yanked it at quem, forcing Tankie to fall into a lying position. Luckily, he propped himself on his arms in time to avoid hitting his head and getting knocked out. Qui started rolling up his pants and examining the ice cold skin.

“Why didn’t you do this when I was unconscious?” he asked, looking on with a level of terror dancing in his eyes.

“Well, firstly, as I said, you were fun. I wanted to get a bit more out of you before you kicked the bucket,” qui lifted up and rotated the leg to examine it further. “And secondly, I’m more of an ethical cannibal than my other… fellow mermen. I wanted to get your consent before I eat you.”

Tankie blanked.

“Isn’t it less painful for me to be eaten when unconscious, making it more ethical?”

“That’s not consensual,” qui looked him straight in the eyes with a serious expression. He decided to stop questioning quis convoluted ethical system and slumped back into his half-lying position.

“What will happen after you eat my legs?” he couldn’t stop his voice from quivering a bit.

“You’d probably die of hypothermia in either case, maybe without your legs it’ll happen a little quicker,” qui shrugged. Tankie couldn’t stop his lip from trembling a bit, and he just did his best to look away. Qui noticed that, of course, and quickly tried to salvage the situation.

“No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that, wait—” qui reached out with quis hand and put it on his cheek, trying to be comforting. “Look, it’s okay. You’re going to be fine, alright? I can stay with you until you die and keep you company.”

Qui smiled, and he just looked back, trying his best not to let any tears run down his face. He leaned into the slimy hand, trying to hold onto any reassurance he got. He forced a quivering smile, letting quim know qui can let go.

Qui placed quis teeth onto the soft flesh on the back of his shins and looked up at him once again.

“You might want to look away,” qui commented. Tankie knew qui was right. “Just lay back, look directly up and try your best to breathe normally, ok?”

He did as he was told and stared at the stars in the night sky. The stars were quite beautiful, yes. He wondered if he could become a star once he died.

Qui sank quis teeth into his leg, and even the anemia given to him by the freezing water didn’t save him from still feeling some things as his leg got nibbled on. He whimpered, shuddering as a sting of pain shot through his body at a piece of his flesh being torn out. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to bite into the fabric of his coat and claw at the rocks he was laying on as the fish creature made loud chewing sounds.

With the second bite the pain made tears pool out of his eyes, as he tried to hold back any screams building up in the back of his throat. They streamed down his face and mixed with the salt water at the base of the rocks. He wondered how much of the sea is actually tears of lost sailors, never to see their friends or families again, hanging onto rocks to save their flesh from becoming mere nutrition in someone’s mouth.

He just lay there, crying, trying his best not to think about what was happening. Each sting of pain rippled through his body, but he eventually stopped thinking about what the pain meant, accepting his fate.

Eventually, the gnawing sounds ended, and the pain became more like static noise in the background. He still kept his eyes closed, and just listened to the slithering noises beside him, and let himself get picked up by a pair of scaly hands and nested into the cold chest of the amphibian. He let his hair be petted and comforting things to be whispered into his ear as he tried to calm down his own tears.

“You did so well,” qui whispered as qui rolled a strand of his hair onto quis finger. “It’s okay now. It’s done. You can relax, everything is going to be over very soon.”

He felt a pair of bloody lips press a kiss into his hair and he felt weirdly comforted by this. He let his breath even out and he leaned into the other. If he didn’t open his eyes he could pretend this was just a normal couple cuddling normally in a completely normal setting.

If he didn’t open his eyes for the rest of his life.

Aye, he could do that.

**Author's Note:**

> :^)
> 
> if u read this fully genuinely thank you so much i spent too much effort writing this


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